Chapter 3

Lannor first used a wafting motion, drawing a thin thread of fog toward himself and catching its scent.

He had to be sure whether this power-laden mist carried poison or some other harm.

If the biological computation engine in his mind, the one he had picked up in that passage through the void, still had spare capacity, he could have learned everything he needed from a touch of his fingertip.

But that capacity had been diverted.

So the Intelligence Core, a relic of a higher world, was reduced to this.

A faint sting touched his nasal passages, then faded as the witcher’s body adapted.

Lannor gave a small nod. The toxicity would burn out a normal man’s lungs within five minutes.

For a witcher, it would cause discomfort, but no real harm for at least half an hour.

It would not affect the fight.

Thin cowhide boots stepped carefully into the fog.

With a soft rasp, as he felt his way forward, Lannor drew the steel sword from his back.

A wooden grip, an iron-gray crossguard and blade.

A Velen longsword, as cheap and ill-made as the province’s reputation.

It lacked the advantage of silver, but against corporeal monsters, it would never be useless.

As Lannor understood it, this contract came from an elder of a nearby village.

By his telling, this valley grew a kind of fine mushroom, found nowhere else in such abundance.

It was the village’s only commodity that could fetch a price in Gors Velen.

But a year ago, this fog had appeared, and those who went to gather the mushrooms never returned.

Now the village could not even afford a single sound iron tool.

There was no coin.

When the witcher and his apprentice arrived, the villagers pooled what little remained, fifty-three orens.

To hire these two foul, accursed mutants to clear the evil fog from the valley.

When the elder had thrown them the advance, the look in his eyes, disgust and fear, had been that of a man forced to touch lepers.